How to Become More Confident in Public Speaking

The problem is that the little you, gets in the way of the bigger You. There is no such thing as being a poor speaker––lacking in confidence and charisma.

You already are a magnificent speaker without any fear at all. But, the you in You is the worst possible speaker that exists.

Please let me explain and help you to understand how to become more confident in public speaking. My hope is that you reflect on the things that you read on this page so that you can relax and be your-Self while speaking in front of other people.

Creativity by Osho

The idea for this page came after reading a book by Osho called "Creativity"

When you are Your Self you are fearless. When you are yourself you have a lot of fear.

Your Self is by nature fearless, it is always celebrating and lives in the moment.

yourself is by nature limited, and it lives in the past or the future.

Reflect on the sentences above and the following for a while: Remember or visualize yourself speaking in front a crowd. What are your fears? do you think: what will they think of me if I screw it up? People will laugh if I say something wrong. I'm worthless if I....

If you have thoughts like these it means that you have based your identity on the little you, the limited you. It is limited and it means that it has created a fixed version of who you are. Any event that will challenge this fixed version of who you are is seen as painful.

This is because you have identified with this fixed version of yourself for so long. Speaking in public mean that you take the little you and throw it out for inspection. You might have told yourself for ages that: I can't speak in front of other people, or I'm worthless and these people will notice it. These are barriers that you have set up and then identified with as yourself. So when you do something that challenges barriers, you are actually challenging yourself, your idea of who you are. And this is very painful. Because, if I am not this which I thought that I was, then who am I? This is the root fear: I don't know who I am. This root fear subconsciously enters you every time you challenge a barrier. You might think that it is your fear of what other people would say about you, etc.. but that is just the fear of not knowing who you are in disguise.

When you are in the present moment, you don't think. And when you don't think you just are as you are. You are Your Self in the present.

As soon as you begin to think, you have lost Your Self. And your little self takes its place. The little self is not a bad thing, it is just limited. The problem is that most of the barriers of your little self lies in the subconscious. This means that you are not aware that they exist, but they still affect you. This true for most phobias that are known to man.

Subconscious phobias are: memories or events that you have rehearsed with your conscious mind to the point that they have become automatic. They are there without you having to think about them. This could mean that once you position yourself in front of a group of people, you could start sweating with your heartbeat racing 300mph. Sometimes you don't even know why you become afraid.

So what should you do? Is it hopeless?

The key is to base your identity in your True Self. The One that is permanently rooted in the Present.

If you can achieve this, you will not even have to write down what you say, because the words will just flow from your like a perfect symphony. The words will come from deep within you and touch the hearts of the people that are lucky enough to listen to you. When you can hold Your Self in situations like speaking in front of an audience you will actually expand and become vast like the ocean. Unlimited resources come to serve you, words and expressions come out of nowhere that fit perfectly.

How do you hold Your True Self?

There are some tricks that I can share with you. I'll start with one and when you are ready i'll reveal to you a second one.

True for everything in life is: in order to be good at something, you have to practice. This is not the trick I'm going to reveal to you but I just thought that it is very important to explain what true practice is. Practice is not what you think it is. Most people think that practice is something tough and boring, something that takes a lot of time and gives no results. This is not practice, it's idiotic activity.

Practice is looking for treasure. True practice involves a state called curiosity. You set your mind in the frame of finding out how to find the treasure. Where to look and what to do, what tools to bring, how much resources that are required. If you have this frame of mind, there is no such thing as failure, but only results that reflects your actions. You can then use these results on how to develop a sense of where to look and where not to look. What tools to use and what not to use, etc.

My point is that it is fun. It's very rewarding and it doesn't feel boring. Don't misunderstand that practice cannot be demanding. It can be very tough and may require you to sweat. But if it is true practice you will enjoy doing it. You have to be very alert and follow this feeling of happiness. Be aware of people saying: if you have a fear of public speaking, you should do this and that, buy this book, buy that. This is because everyone is unique and require different ways to the target. Practice is something that you should love to do. If you don't love it, you are probably pushing to hard or it is not the right thing to do at the moment.

So practicing for becoming good at public speaking you could do the following: compliment a total stranger on his or her clothing style. Then the next day compliment two people and the third day, three, etc. Or you could go to a part in your city where you don't know anyone and in front of a couple of people just say the word I loudly and then experience how you feel. I'm just making things up, but the goal is to reduce your fear, or the barriers (mostly subconscious) that keeps you from being present in Your Self. The key thing to remember is that you are your own teacher, keep on testing and follow the feeling of joy.

Now for the trick:

The trick for holding your True self is to develop the strength to carry it. It is vastly more powerful than your little self. You need to develop the power to keep it. The power to keep your True Identity, Your Self, is located in your navel point. This is where your confidence lies. People with a strong navel point have usually a strong confidence. There are exceptions but if the energy, nerves and muscles in the navel are strong, you will become very sure of yourself.

What should you do then? You should engage in exercises that strengthens the abdominal muscles.

This can be painful because the navel point is also the foundation for the little self. When strengthening it, you also force the smaller self to drop its limitations which it doesn't like. It is sort of a home makeover. You are taking your current navel point and are shaping it up so that it can be the home to a better and a greater person than the one currently living there. The smaller self will when the navel point is complete act as a servant to the Higher Self but that might just confuse you right now.

My tip is as follows: Strengthen your abdominal muscles with any type of activity you prefer.